Srinagar, July 18 -- By Faizaan Bashir

I sat by the window long after the city outside had gone still, a blank sheet of paper glowing under the lamp, and for a long while I simply watched the light fall across my own hands.

I had meant to write to Ja'ana for weeks, to tell her everything that lived inside me, but the words kept scattering like birds startled off a branch the moment I reached for them.

I thought instead of the way she laughed with her whole face, and the way her silences could fill a room more completely than her words ever did.

I loved her the way a traveller loves the first light after a long night on the road, a feeling closer to arrival than to romance.

I knew myself well enough to admit I was a man who read too m...